The Last Jedi Director and Mark Hamill Mercilessly Mock an All-Male Edit of the Latest Star Wars

Thanks to the amplification of social media, extreme fan reactions to pop culture is getting more attention than ever. Some might say the out-sized fan reactions are partially created by the age of digital fandom which rewards extreme takes with viral fame. Even negative attention is attention, right? In other words, it may be worth throwing your TV off the balcony in disgust over a football game for your fifteen minutes of internet glory. This trend is particularly pernicious in the realm of sci-fi/fantasy fandom where we’ve seen “angry” and “disappointed” fans digitally clamor for a Zack Snyder cut of The Justice League that simply doesn’t exist, disturbingly harass and dox the stars of the 2016 Ghostbusters remake, petition for Disney to “strike” the divisive Last Jedi from the Star Wars canon, and, most recently, take the time to re-cut the movie into a “*The Last Jedi*: De-Feminized Fanedit” which omits most of the women from the 165-minute film. The result is an incomprehensible 46-minute “movie” that has to be a joke and, even if it’s not, has director Rian Johnson and his male stars are howling with laughter.

The problem with reporting on any of these “protests” (joking or no) from disgruntled, spotlight-hungry fans is that it gives them the attention they crave. Media coverage can also make it seem like there are more extremists out there than actually exist. (See, for example, how pathetically few people actually showed up to protest for the Snyder Justice League cut). Yes, some people didn’t like The Last Jedi for a variety of reasons both sensible and otherwise. But the movie still brought in $1.2 billion worldwide (and counting) making it unquestionably the most profitable film of 2017 so it can’t have upset that many people. So perhaps raucous laughter rather than agitation is the best way to great something as ridiculous as a fan edit that hopes to remove, among other things, “most shots showing female fighters/pilots and female officers commanding people around/having ideas.“ BirthMoviesDeath writer Priscilla Page took exactly that dismissive attitude when news of the edit broke over the weekend and the film’s director, Rian Johnson, joined in.